linking the presence of invasive alien species to measure ecological quality

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is European Union (EU) legislation which aims for 'good status' for all ground and surface waters in the EU. The ecological and chemical status of surface waters is assessed on four criteria including, Biological Quality (fish, benthic invertebrates, aquatic flora).

Biological invasions are increasing and are widely acknowledged to threaten bio-diversity. Although this general principle is not disputed we cannot currently produce the evidence that the presence of invasive species is reducing ecological status as measured for the WFD.

The concept behind this proposed work is that our biological monitoring is likely to contain enough information to enable a dedicated researcher to either show that biodiversity is reduced by some or all alien invasive species or that their presence has little or no effect. The research will also enable us to understand when our biological tools may have 'missed' an impact or provided a false signal, or which tools are likely to respond to which species.

The project requires a dedicated researcher, ideally an ecologist, with extensive knowledge and experience of handling very large datasets, who is able to work with data of varying quality and can perform reasonably complex statistical analysis in order to extract the maximum benefit from existing data. They should also be a good communicator and capable of producing a final report that will be published.

Additional information: The tender process is being undertaken within Bravo, an online portal. Therefore you will find all tender questions and the areas for you to submit your tender response within the Bravo system. The deadline for responses is 10am on Thursday, 9 November 2017.

Should you have queries with the tender, please contact the Commercial Lead. This can be achieved by logging in to Bravo and navigating to the relevant 'ITT' and then the 'messages' area. Any messages that you submit here will go directly to the relevant Commercial lead.

To register on the Bravo portal, click on the 'Register now' button. Guidance on how to register is available under the 'click here for details on how to register' link. All queries regarding using the system that are not answered by the guidance section should be directed to the eSourcing Helpdesk run by BravoSolution (the suppliers of the portal) who can be contacted via: Phone: 0800 368 4850 Email: [email protected]

https://defra.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.html